Guest opinion: Congratulations! But was it really an election?

There is something very wrong with our two-party election process. It has become a "perfect storm" of false decision.

Though I was happy with the results, I paid very little attention to the election hype. There was no chance that my vote would be affected by the $6 billion campaign. I know who I am, and a binary choice between two opposites is like being asked my name. The same is true for most people on both sides. But I figured the result was primarily up to chance for that very reason, so I just voted and prayed.

Campaigners automatically assume ignorance and our capacity to believe illusions. And advertising speaks to a dull mind. But I wonder if the voting process itself allows for anything else. And that worries me.

I have to marvel at people who become walking encyclopedias of ad slogans. But in their defense, what option do they have? In our system you're either for A or B; and we root for our home teams. But we know who we are -- what we need are legitimate choices.

Like many, I search for the information I need, and I'm skeptical when it comes to my door dressed in various guises. Sure, I select what I want and form a personal bias -- but that's OK because it's my vote. Nobody votes according to universal truth, we vote according what part of that we understand. And we understand different parts.

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I can't debate economic strategy as if I were in the G8. But I have reasoned opinions as do most others. The idea that any reasonable person should evaluate facts the way I do is a myth. Meaning is contextual. If that context is A, then the facts mean A. If B, then B. So each half thinks the other is ignorant. Maybe both are right.

Or maybe both are wrong. I find it a little smelly to think that one side has it all and the other is clueless. What if we each have reasons for what we think is right? The scary thing is, in our system the outcome is the same.

Institutionalized ignorance and professional electioneering, now giga-funded to overwhelm our sensibilities, serves one purpose; to eliminate our choice altogether.

There is a concept called "duality," which is a characteristic of knowledge itself. It is in everything. Complex systems appear to have two halves, just like the brain. When the halves are combined, they function as a whole. Whey they are not, there is disease.

For centuries our dualistic political system provided some kind of sloppy whole that kept us out of civil war. And while each side may think the other is the devil, our choice is really about which strategy is wanted at the time. But that was when we were the ones choosing. I argue that a perfect duality makes that no longer the case.

The result is destruction of the very choice we are fighting about. A perfect duality throws the election into the noise, which is open to shallow manipulation by advertising money. And that's if we avoid overt cheating.

We may rejoice that the vote spread was enough to pick a winner, but it was 50:50 plus or minus noise up to the end. Did we get the message in 2000 that in such a system nobody wins? Someone is picked for us?

With a simple polarity even candidates are forced identify with one extreme while claiming the middle. Is it any wonder we suspect them of lying? Honest discussion would be self-defeating in such an environment.

When duality and disinformation nullify real choice, votes are apportioned per dollar instead of per person. Without a middle ground there aren't even legitimate disagreements.

In this vacuum of well-funded ignorance, mythical "undecided voters" are imagined as so many pennies being flipped from side by lame sound bites and quick catchy judgments.

To have "a more perfect union" we have to bust up the professional duality that has cornered our choices. That can be done by allowing a real place for third parties by:

Adopting simplified instant run-off voting with first and second preferences. Thus you can vote a third party without "throwing away your vote." A third party would have a chance, but more importantly they would have to be taken seriously and the overall conversation could not be dumbed down to polar extremes.

Closing the flood gates on private campaign funding (as voted!)

Apportioning state delegates by percentage of the vote (so second choices get to the Electoral College).

Adopting compatible rules in the Electoral College.

There are also changes we can make individually. We can join a third party. That will help put them on the map. We can ignore the hype and the noise. That will help put the disinformation machine out of business. Mostly, we can not fall for stories that the country will be destroyed if....bla bla bla.

John J. Kineman is a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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